Shelf furniture is of course used for many purposes For example, stores may use shelf furniture to display their goods or other items. Shelves may also be used for storage, bookshelves, etc. Wall-mounted shelves are popular because of the stability provided by the wall mounting. Also, wall-mounted shelves may be elevated up off of the floor, freeing up the floor space beneath the shelves for either storage of non-shelf items or for aesthetic reasons.
Prior art wall-mounted shelf furniture is exemplified by the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: Ferdinand et al. 3,563,626; Little 2,661,993 and Winter et al. 4,854,535. The shelves are supported by brackets that are mounted to vertical strips. The vertical strips are mounted to a wall. The unsightly mounting hardware is visible and greatly detracts from the aesthetics of the shelving.
In addition to unsightliness, another problem with the prior art is that much of the hardware for mounting the shelves to a wall is nonstandard mounting hardware. Such hardware is exemplified by U.S. Pat. Nos.: Wilson 4,733,841; Boundy et al. 4,013,254 and Reiter 3,744,868. The types of mounting hardware shown in these patents are too complicated and expensive.